When one attends a business meeting, convention or any business related gathering, it is common practice to exchange business cards with people one meets. At the end of such meetings, one would typically have a stack of such business cards from individuals with information on each individual such as name, title, affiliation, address, telephone number, facsimile number and some other information that each individual may choose to include. To keep track of the contacts made, one would input the data from the cards into a computer with the appropriate software.
Inputting is normally done manually through a keyboard, which is time consuming and prone to human errors.
Where the business cards are not inputted into a computer, they are typically organized in a storage box. When there are hundreds of these calling cards, manual sorting and searching is time consuming.
During a business trip, one typically spends relatively large amount of time in airports and in the air. During this time, it is not unusual for one to pass the time by reading magazines, newspapers or other written materials, since the airlines make them readily available. While leafing through these magazines, one would normally come across an interesting advertisement or article to which one would desire to refer at a later time. Typically, one would write down the necessary information, such as, in the case of an advertisement, the item description, manufacturer's or dealer's address, cost, etc. In some cases where mail-in cards are provided, one would normally tear out the cards, check off the desired items and set them aside for later mailing. After the trip, one would organize the notes he had up picked from the magazines or the like to determine which ones to act on, such as requesting additional information from the manufacturer or author. However, what typically happens later on is that the notes or cards are misplaced or forgotten, losing the valuable information.
There is therefore a need for a system that can read and store bar-encoded data from a business card or other printed materials such as advertisements, articles, etc. that eliminates the above-mentioned problems.